Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Brother Ignatius of the Dark Angels, Fourth Company

“Cloud Runner gazed on the wreckage of his home and felt like weeping. He closed his eyes and took three breaths, but when he looked again, nothing had changed. He turned back towards the dropship Deathwing.

Weasel-Fierce had just descended from the ramp. He gazed round ferally at what once had been Cloud Runner’s village and brought his storm bolter into attack position. A grin split his skull-like face.

‘Dark Angels, be wary. Death has walked here,’ he said. The sun glistened off Weasel-Fierce’s black Terminator armour. With his white hair and Y-shaped scar-tattoos, he looked like the Eater of Bones come back to claim the world.”

-William King, Deathwing

I've admired some of the Japan-only collectible Space Marines for a while now. Not enough to buy the whole set, but I was occasionally looking at a few individuals on eBay. I finally pulled the trigger and picked up Brother Aethor. Since this is already a special model, I wanted to make it even more one-of-a-kind and I had some Puppets War Native American heads laying around from another project that never got started.

I just noticed the line across the Tactical Arrow as I sit to type this post!

Back in the old days, the Dark Angels used to have a more significant Native American feel and a story involving several Native American stereotypes were used to explain why the Deathwing have white armor. Plus, I have a Dark Angels army, so using it really kind of made sense to do a simple head swap. Although I just said I have a Dark Angles army, it's not really something I have worked on for a long while. And definitely not since I have become much more proficient with an airbrush. So I thought this would be a good excuse to practice their armor as well...and maybe kick start me into finishing what I own.

I did make a mistake though...I didn't watch what greens I was pulling and used the wrong shade in the highlights. I followed the traditional GW color scheme of Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, and final edge highlights of Scorpion Green, and that is what I intended to use here. So I started with a black base and applied a coat of Vallejo Game Air Dark Angels Green (leaving some black showing through in the absolute lowest points), followed by a layer of Vallejo Game Air Snot Green at about a 45 degree angle, and then a final airbrushed highlight that was supposed to be 50:50 Snot Green and Scorpion Green, before final highlights would be applied with a brush. But instead of Scorpion Green, I accidentally used Goblin Green, which is way less vibrant that Scorpion Green.

So as a result, he looks a little more camo-y than I had intended, but I still think he came out pretty well.

Oh, I really like the American Indian vibe! I mean, I like it a lot! The green looks good, so you can be happy with this one. Feathers would have been the icing of the cake, but I think he looks pretty nice just this way.

Looks sweet mate. Agree with Grove on the feathers, but not a bad thing.Loved that old Deathwing story. Bloody wasted opportunity to not have it in the fluff these days. (Main reason I got rid of my DA army.)